1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a multi-color recording apparatus capable of multi-color recording.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There are already known various recording apparatus capable of multi-color recording. Such printers include various types of thermal printers, among them being a thermal printer utilizing a thermal transfer ink ribbon as the recording material, which has become popular in recent years.
The thermal transfer ink ribbon employed in such thermal printer is composed, for example as shown in FIG. 1, of a substrate 1 consisting of a polyester film or the like, on a face of which there is provided an ink layer 2, containing a dye or pigment such as carbon black, coated across a thermally fusible binder layer 3.
Printing with such a thermal transfer ink ribbon is achieved by energizing plural heat-generating elements of a thermal printing head in the thermal printer and bringing said heat-generating elements into contact with the uncoated face of the ribbon to transmit the heat thereto, thereby fusing the binder 3 and transferring the ink 2 onto a printing sheet.
In the thermal printer utilizing such thermal transfer ink ribbon, there is commonly used carbon black containing ink as the ink layer 2 for obtaining black prints, but other colors such as red, blue or yellow may also be printed by incorporating suitable dyes or pigments in the ink.
FIGS. 2 and 3 show examples of ink ribbon structure for use in such multi-color printing.
In the example shown in FIG. 2, the ink ribbon is divided transversely into plural areas 4, 5 and 6 which are respectively provided with inks of different colors, for example red, blue and yellow, respectively. Multi-color printing with such ink ribbon is achieved by shifting the ribbon vertically with respect to the thermal printing head in such a manner that the ink of a desired color corresponds to the thermal printing head.
In the example shown in FIG. 3, the ink ribbon is longitudinally divided into plural areas 7, 8, 9 of a determined length, which are respectively provided with red, blue and yellow inks.
With such an ink ribbon, multi-color printing is achieved by advancing said ribbon until the ink of a desired color corresponds the thermal printing head.
The ink ribbon shown in FIG. 2 is however associated with the drawbacks that a mechanism for vertically shifting the ink ribbon is required in the thermal printer, which increases the dimension of the printer because the width of the ink ribbon becomes larger, and that the ink ribbon is uneconomical because the inks other than that of the printed color remain unused and are thus wasted.
Also the ink ribbon shown in FIG. 3 is likewise uneconomical if printing of a particular color continues, since the inks of other colors are not used and wasted.
Multi-color recording has become also common in the field of ink jet printing, in which liquid inks are used as recording materials and are emitted in the form of droplets to achieve dot recording. Also in this type of recording, if the inks of different colors, for example black and red, are held in a cartridge, either remaining ink has to be discarded if the other ink in the cartridge runs out.